Beginning a run of publicity, started last week with the Daily Mail's serialisation of Joan's new book 'The World According To Joan'.. Here is the first of a series of magazine articles/features to appear in the coming months.. This interview is from the latest issue of 'Woman's Own' magazine on newstands now!

This exclusive photo of Joan at the fashionable St Tropez restaurant La Volie Rouge, where she enjoyed a last lunch before she leaves for London to promote her exciting new bestseller 'The World According To Joan'.. A great time was had by all as Joan enjoyed time with family and friends... Thanks to Joan for sharing this lovely photo of herself with brother Bill and daughter Katy....

This hot off the presses cover is for Australian Gay Community magazine MCV Melbourne Comminity Voice.. which features a one page interview with Joan to coincide with her November tour of Australia with her sensational one woman show.. A Night With Joan.. Funnily enough the same promomtional photo was used for 'The Lady' magazine, which I featured yesterday...

Monday, August 29, 2011

As it's only days away from the publication of Joan's new book..'The World According To Joan', here is a great shot which on first glance you would be forgiven for thinking Joan had decided to become part of the window display to promote her first novel 'Prime Time'.. However this fun photo shows a book store in the USA with a clever standee or should that be loungee! in the window to promote the book..

Sunday, August 28, 2011

This stylish photo of features Joan and John Standing in an episode of the BBC series 'Tonight At 8.30' a series of plays written by Noel Coward.. This episode was called 'Way's and Mean's"..which also starred Sian Phillips, Tony Slattery and Miriam Margolyes...

You are cordially invited to a marriage of two families. The Sterling's.. all city money, but no class! The Ogleby's... all class, but no money!! But who is marrying who? With young Betsy in love with a servant.. Fann'y husband to be, in love with himself.. not to mention Lord Ogleby, who has his eye on anyone! It's a riotous recipe for a Clandestine Marriage!

'The Clandestine Marriage', was first performed as a play in 1776 at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. A production starring and directed by Nigel Hawthorne appeared at The Queen's Theatre London in 1995. Joan attended a performance of this production and loved it."I first saw the play on stage in the West-End. Both Nigel and Trevor were friends and afterwards at dinner I told them how much I loved the piece. I love the character of Mrs Heidelberg and told Nigel that if he ever got the film together, I wanted to play her! It is an absolutely beautiful film, very funny and quite eccentric, with a witty twist on the way society behaved."

The film was shot on location at Stanway House, in Gloucestershire. But filming was almost abandoned when the money ran out. A major investor, who was due to plough 6.5 million into the production, failed to come up with the bulk of the money. To keep the production rolling, Nigel put £50,000 to cover immediate expenses. He then persuaded Joan to help and she managed to get a loan of £350,000 from her own bank, with an additional £150,000 from her agent. Both Nigel and Joan had great faith in the film, Nigel recalled.."If you commit yourself to a project, then you commit yourself because you believe in it. You don't do it for the money."
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USA DVD COVER

﻿ Joan loved the film so much, she was determined the film would be completed."I play Mrs Heidelberg, a very strong, very imperious woman. A pseudo aristocrat who has gone from being a poor woman from London's Blackfriars, to somebody very rich in Holland. She is a very different character for me. I have done all manner of parts over the years, but people don't think of me in this kind of role. When I look back on my career, it seems to have had three distinct phases. I started off as a babe, became a bitch and now I'm playing an old bag!"

The film got some good reviews....FILM REVIEW....

UK VIDEO SLEEVE

'A rare attempt to put a restoration comedy on screen. "The Clandestine Marriage! is a pleasing, if slight piece of work. Deirdre Clancy's costumes and Martin Childs production design, remain the highlights of the film. The comedic talents of veterans Spall, Hawthorne and even Collins are also called well into play. Hardly profound, but certainly enjoyable.. "The Clandestine Marriage" deserves attention..

VARIETY ...."More coin could have put a real shine in 'The Clandestine Marriage', a likeable and generally well played costume comedy, whose attributes are too often limited by the obvious penury of it's budget. Unlike many costume comedies, 'Marriage' sets up and positions it's characters with simplicity and clarity. The humour is handled with such style by a talented cast, that by final curtain, a real warmth has developed for these quirky, hopeless figures, trapped by social strictures, partly of their own making."

The film has excellant performances, with stunning photography and a fabulous music score by Stanislas Syrewicz, I purchased the cd before the film's release and it is still a joy to listen to. 'The Clandestine Marriage' was available on video in 1999, but has yet to get an airing on dvd, other than a region 1 release a few years ago. The film does turn up on tv and it is certainly worth catching!

Saturday, August 27, 2011

While on her tour of Australia in November, Joan has been invited to be guest of honour for Oaks Day on November 3rd at the 2011 Melbourne Cup Carnival. Best Selling Vitamin brand 'Swisse' have invited Joan into their exclusive marquee in the Flemington Birdcage, the most prestigious events venue at the long running race meeting, celebrating 151 years..

Joan is delighted to be asked to attend the event and is a fan of the popular vitamin range..

This weeks exerpt comes from a 1957 book '7 Deadly Sins Of Hollywood', published by Oldbourne Press and written by The Evening Standard's showbusiness columnist Thomas Wiseman, who spent a few weeks in Hollywood to see it all at first hand.. Meeting all the stars of the time, now legends, he also spent some time with Joan, thus the following edited exerpt's. But first what are the 7 deadly sins of Hollywood?1- Snobbery ... Glamour girls are the peasantry of Hollywood and however far they get, they are always treated with thinly veiled contempt by those who have made the grade in a more socially acceptable way. Money snobbery is very pronounced.. If you should fail to order Caviar one evening, or if you cut your staff of gardners from five to four, it is a certain sign that you are on the skids.. Consequently nobody can afford to economise...2- Gossip ... It is a town full of frustrated story-tellers. You can start a rumour here in the morning and have it retold to you as an absolute fact in the afternoon. You would boggle at the number of contradictory stories told with absolute authority about the activities of any major star. One comes to the conclusion that Hollywood is either full of schizophrenics or liars. To gossip is a condition of survival in Hollywood..3- Sycophancy ... There are many people here of vague, undefined talents who occupy positions of power. Usually they owe their positions to their innate talent for flattery. This is a real and necessary talent here. Every person entrusted with the task of making decisions has to have someone to tell them that their decision was the right one. Self confidence has to be bought.. Trust in your own judgment comes only from the knowledge that a dozen other people trust it too!4- Shop talk .. Whenever people switch off their TV sets and indulge in the luxury of conversation they talk about films. There is no other topic of conversation. The outside world might not exist. When people mention the President they are usually referring to the chief executive of MGM, not of the United States. 5- Egomania .. Hollywood is a democracy, which means that everyone, however humble, has the right to be an egomaniac. Since this is a place where you can go from dishwashing to stardom on the strength of an attractive dimple, everone is entitled to an ego. If you cannot convince yourself that you are the greatest thing that has happened to the town since talkies, you won't convince anyone else.6- Salesmanship .. In Hollywood everybody has something to sell- a smile, a look, a startling shape, a voice. Sex appeal is sold by the bucket, charm by the pint, masculinity by the foot, femininity by the square inch, cuteness by the ounce. Therfore some sex-queens are undersexed and why many of the sweetest little things on the screen are little toughies at home.7- Parochialism .. The business of making films involves an enormous wastage of time. A star who makes two films a year is working hard and yet would be left with about six months free time. Of course the time is not completely free, they might have to confer with agents, wrangle over contracts, attend to personal publicity, read scripts, cope with income tax demands. While doing all this, they have no real work to do, so they will do the rounds of Hollywood parties, make the same wisecracks in a dozen different sittingrooms. And though they will try hard to persuade themselves that they are having a wonderful time, they will be a very bored star!

In Hollywood everyone was talking about 'those beautiful English girls of yours'.. They are the vogue today, as dates, as actresses, as cover girls, as party goers. Understandably, Hollywood ranted about Joan Collins, London had scarcely raised its voice about her. I remembered Miss Collins as a sort of coffee bar Jezebel, in sweater and jeans, who liked to jive and to read about herself in fan magazines. She was married to an actor, Maxwell Reed and they lived in a pseudo-Spanish top floor flat in Mayfair above a lot of offices. The aura she carried around with her in those days was of cellar jazz clubs, not of stardom. Now look at Miss Collins today after appearing in 'The Virgin Queen' with Bette Davis and 'The Girl In The Red Velvet Swing' with Ray Milland. Her physique is wrapped in a £5,000 mink coat. Underneath it she wears a body moulding black jersey dress. On her finger a topaz ring. On her wrists an assortment of gold bangles. Her hat looks like a very contemporary lampshade. Her fingernails, grown the length of talons, are painted silver. Next time I see her she is wearing a topless gown, her hair style has become positively futuristic. Her face is almost a work of art, revealing the lavish use of eye pencil, eye shadow, mascara, the lot! Her talk and walk are in bebop language, her figure is pronounced, wherever it should be. Miss Collins talks about her arrival in Hollywood with an American accent... "Oh sure, there were wolves around. Some are kinda fast workers. One wealthy playboy rang me up before he'd even met me and gave me the spiel. He got to be a real pest. Followed me to New York. I managed to give him the brush off though. My studio wanted to arrange a publicity romance for me with Robert Wagner. They had a whole schedule of dates fixed. But I wouldn't play. I didn't think it was right. For one thing, I'm still married. And another, I can arrange my own dates. Miss Collins's present standing as a star, the result of playing some far from innocent roles, is high. She has considerable assets of one kind or another. She has a Thunderbird convertible. She possesses a mink coat, a white mink stole and a blue mink stole and a box full of jewellry.

JOAN WITH ARTHUR LOEW JR AND ERROL FLYNN

I met Joan at a party with Arthur Loew Jr, son of the boss of MGM. Miss Collins is usually with Loew Jr these days. I notice she has given up costume jewellry and is now wearing the genuine stuff. "Just a few trinkets Arthur gave me for Christmas" she explains. Trinkets include a dazzling diamond ring and a star sapphire. " I don't wear costume jewellry anymore. I keep it stored. Now I only wear the real stuff. Some of it I bought myself, some of it I had given to me." Obviously Miss Collins has no cause to be dissatisfied with Hollywood. What she wants happens to be precisely what Hollywood can give her plenty of!(c) 1957 Thomas Wiseman..

Thursday, August 25, 2011

This fab shot taken a few hours ago, features Joan posing on a friends yacht, as she enjoys her last few days in St Tropez, before she returns to London to promote her sensational new book.. 'The World According To Joan'..

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

As it's only another week to go until the publication of 'The World According To Joan', here is a candid photo of Joan as she contemplates signing a copy of her 1991 best-selling novel - 'Love & Desire & Hate'...

As Joan has just announced her tour of Australia, here is a cover from the NZ edition of Australian Women's Weekly, which interviewed Joan when she was in the region filming the family adventure 'Ozzie'...